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December 30, 2011

Homemade Pasta is not nearly as daunting as it might seem. As a person that uses store-bought pie crust and boxed cakes mixes, I'm definitely not an 'everything from scratch' purist - by any stretch. But when Mike and I went to Italy on our honeymoon, we discovered fresh pasta. When we came back home, the only way we could get the authentic pappardelle and tagliatelle pasta we had had was to make it ourselves.

For most of our special occasions, instead of heading out to a restaurant we spend the evening with a bottle of wine and our pasta rolling machine. This year for our 1st Anniversary I was 8 months pregnant and we had a snow storm headed our way in New England. Going out was not an option... not a fun sounding one, anyway. We stayed in, started a fire, Mike opened a bottle of wine (for himself) and I got out the pasta roller.

Start with a KitchenAid mixer fitted with the dough hook. Dump in the flour, then top with the eggs. Put the mixer on medium and let the ingredients roll together until they form a ball.

*You may need to add a little bit (1-3 tablespoons?) of water or flour if the dough is too wet or too dry. After a ball is formed, let the dough 'knead' on low-medium in the mixer for 5-7 minutes until the dough is elastic. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit for 20 minutes.

When it is finished kneading, turn the dough out onto a floured board and kneed it by hand a couple of times.

From this stage, you can roll it out by hand with a rolling pin (or bottle of wine!), or put it through a pasta rolling machine. Either way is pretty simple. I've recently invested in this pasta machine that was very inexpensive. If you plan to make a lot of pasta in the future it can make things a little easier.

Separate the dough into 6 pieces. Flour the machine and dough well to keep it from sticking. Feed it through the rolling/flattening part of the machine starting on the largest setting and progressing to a smaller setting each time you feed the dough through. I find that flouring it each time helps to keep it from sticking. After it has gone through the smallest (or 2nd to the smallest) setting, lay it flat.

Attach the tagliatelle (small square cut long pasta, pictured above) cutting attachment. Feed the long flat sheets through, creating long strands of spaghetti type pasta. Set aside in a dry area until ready to cook in boiling water.

Cook in a large pot of boiling salted water for 30 seconds, until the pasta is light in color and floating.

In a saucepan, heat cream for 5 minutes on medium - until slightly bubbling. When the cream is bubbling, reduce heat to low. Add truffle butter, stir to melt.

Add pasta to the boiling water. After 30 seconds, remove the pasta from the water (with tongs) and place it immediately into the truffle cream sauce. Toss and stir to coat. Add a small amount of black pepper. Serve immediately!

We love a simple, seared steak along side our truffle pasta. For the step-by-step directions for how to perfectly sear a steak in a skillet, click here.

This is interesting! I never considered using my mixer to form the dough. I always make it using the flour and making a little well for the eggs, and to be honest it's messy and really hard to combine. The pasta didn't turn out too tough or anything being mixed in the Kitchen Aid? I'm going to try this!